Re: Cisco's position on the WebRTC API

On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 6:47 PM, cowwoc <cowwoc@bbs.darktech.org> wrote:

>  On 23/07/2013 9:14 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 5:03 PM, cowwoc <cowwoc@bbs.darktech.org> wrote:
>
>>   On 23/07/2013 7:45 PM, Cullen Jennings (fluffy) wrote:
>>
>> Cisco strongly believes that the top priority of this WG should be to finish a usable specification as soon as possible.  At the recent WebRTC Expo plenary session, we asked developers what they needed changed in current specs and almost no comments were received in a room of several hundreds people - representing close to a hundred companies - that are primarily focused on developing and deploying services using WebRTC. When I asked companies privately between sessions, the number one requirement I heard was to get the spec stabilized and shipping.
>>
>> Right now we have an API that meets many needs and is getting close to completion. Cisco's position is that the scope of the WG should not be expanded until the current 1.0 work is complete. After that is complete, we think it's fine to consider a low-level API - in fact we will probably submit a proposal - but we strongly object to doing something in parallel. Trying to work on two specifications at once will only slow down the current work which is already late.
>>
>> Cullen, AC Rep for Cisco
>>
>>
>>      Ehm. Having attended said conference and the "IETF and W3C
>> Standards Reports" session in particular, allow me to share a differing
>> point of view :)
>>
>>    1. The vast majority of attendees were Telecoms, not Web Developers.
>>    2. There were approximately 50-100 attendees in the session.
>>    3. We only had enough time for 4-5 comments. Those who got to speak
>>    brought up SDP, H264 and other colorful issues.
>>    4. I brought up the topic of SDP. I was assured (by yourself, no
>>    less) that users would never have to interact with SDP and encouraged to
>>    bring up the topic on the mailing list. When I did exactly that, the
>>    reception was less than welcoming (from the Telecoms, that is) and I was
>>    disappointed to discover that you did not provide any support (at the very
>>    least confirming what you told me in private).
>>
>>
>  I wasn't at the conference, but I think it would really be helpful if
> your complaint here
> was more precise. As I understand it, Cullen's position is something like
> the following:
>
>  - In general, people won't have to deal with SDP because the API will
> let you do
>   what you want to do without interacting with SDP.
> - To the extent to which there are meaningful use cases that the API
> doesn't
>   deal with, we want to eventually add features to the SDP to deal with
> that.
> - In the period before we have added features to the API, people may have
> to
>   deal with SDP a bit.
>
>  FWIW, I think this reflects a broad feeling (though obviously not
> complete consensus)
> in the WG.
>
>  Is your complaint:
>
>  1. You don't like this answer?
> 2. You wanted Cullen to affirm on the list that this was his answer?
>
>  Or something else?
>
> Hi Eric,
>
>     My understanding was: "Our goal is to map all use-cases to Constraints
> so that you never have to deal with SDP, unless you want to play with
> experimental features (outside the scope of the specification) and the
> expectation is that even those will eventually make their way into the
> Constraints API."
>

I don't see the difference between that and what I just said.


 In other words, I understood that SDP is the logical equivalent of CSS
> prefixes.
>

I don't know what that means.



>    1. I'm fine with his answer. Ideally I'd like the API to hide SDP
>    under the hood and tunnel experimental features through Constraint prefixes
>    (similar to CSS prefixes) but I'll accept the status quo if this is the
>    best we can do.
>     2. Yes, I wanted him to affirm what he said publicly because I've
>    read contradictory assertions on the mailing list.
>
> What contradictory assertions do you think people have made? I think both
Stefan and I
have said that we believe that the bullet points above are more or less the
position
of the WG. If you think people are taking a different position, then please
point
to the relevant WG messages.

With that said, I think you have an unrealistic expectation about the degree
to which individual WG participants are obligated to respond to you.

    Look, essentially we have a problem of trust. I am looking for the
> Working Group to make a public/binding commitments for major decisions.
> This doesn't mean that they can't change their mind at a later time, but at
> the very least they will need to explain themselves and the community will
> judge if their reasons are reasonable.
>
I don't understand what this means. Text gets written and discussed and
either has consensus or it doesn't. If there are big controversial topics
they get discussed and minuted. I don't really understand what you think
would constitute a binding commitment other than that.

-Ekr